Nothing To Do With It
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Tag to "Flatline". "You were an exceptional Doctor. Goodness had nothing to do with it." Clara takes the Doctor's warning to heart, and the "long story" she tells Danny is true.


Nothing To Do With It

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

"I swear, it's true. I was helping a young boy find his auntie."

"And?"

"And what?"

"I'm asking you. That can't be the whole story."

Danny stood with his hands in his coat pockets, a solid, unyielding shadow against the trees behind him. The wind was chilly for September, but that wasn't what made Clara wrap her own jacket closer.

_Congratulations, Doctor Oswald, _the Doctor had said. _Lying is a necessary survival skill. _She tossed back her hair.

"And … turns out his auntie was killed by two-dimensional aliens. They were moving through the walls. When you phoned me, Rixy and I were swinging by a chair that hung from the ceiling trying to avoid them. We crashed through the window. That was the noise you heard. The Doctor couldn't help us because they shrank his TARDIS and he got trapped inside. In the end Rixy helped me rig some tech to use the aliens' energy against them and un-shrink the TARDIS, and I really thought I did well, but the Doctor was disappointed in me. And he's right. I should never have lied to you, Danny. God, I'm so sorry."

She said this in a rush, staring fixedly at the yellow maple leaf over Danny's shoulder because she couldn't bear to see his eyes.

"So how do I know you're not lying _this _time?"

His voice was every bit as flat as the bodies of the invaders. Tears stung her eyes. He sounded like the Doctor. How could both of them turn so cold to her on the same day?

"Oh, c'mon," she laughed shakily. "If I was lying, don't you think I'd come up with something a bit less ridiculous?"

"Less ridiculous than the surprise play, you mean." The laughter in his voice, which she usually loved, turned bitter as he began to walk.

"I know. But I _tried _to give up on him, I honestly tried!"

She hurried to keep up, past the park benches, the row of whispering trees and the soccer green beyond. Distant cheers sounded incongruously from a gang of schoolboys playing there.

"But – but after the Orient Express, I couldn't. I saw him take on all a woman's pain and literally transfer it to himself, just so the monster attacking her would go for him instead. He can be a git, but when he does things like that – how could I leave him all alone? How could anyone?"

"I never asked you to leave him," said Danny, his own voice beginning to tremble. "I told you it's your choice."

"But I know you don't like it," she said to his retreating back as he sped up. "I know it makes you worry."

"And why'd you think it does?"

He swung around so fast, she bumped into his chest. He steadied her, his hands on her shoulders warm and gentle even now. He caught her gaze, and she blinked hard to clear away the tears that threatened to return. There was no judgment in his eyes now. They were pleading_._

"Clara," his hold tightened, as if she were about to slip through his fingers and fall. "Look what it's doing to you. It's turning you into someone you're not."

_You were an exceptional Doctor_, the Doctor had said. _Goodness had nothing to do with it. _That had hurt her at the time, but she could have put it aside. He was always cynical these days, and little jabs at her seemed to have become his latest hobby even as they worked to protect each other and the universe at all costs. But Danny – Danny saw her through the eyes of a lover. If _he _thought she was changing for the worse …

_I saved everybody, _part of her wanted to scream. _I saved Rixy with a hair band, for God's sake! I powered up the bloody TARDIS so the Doctor could do his job, and did he thank me? _But one look at Danny drained the arrogance out of her, like water out of a pricked balloon.

She'd frightened the workers. She'd barely batted an eye at the deaths of George and PC Forrest. She'd mocked and belittled the Doctor; never mind that he kept doing it to her. Worst of all by far, she'd lied to the man she loved.

She bowed her head, hair falling to hide her face.

"You're right," she whispered, putting both hands on his chest to support her as her world spun apart. "You're right. Danny … can you help me?"

"I will." He took her hands and folded them together, so small between his stronger ones, as if helping her to pray. "I'll remind you. I'll be here for you whenever you need me. Always."

"Always?" He had seen death. He ought to know, as well as she did, the complexity of that word.

"As long as I possibly can," he amended, "Which you'll find is a very long time. Only don't lie to me again, Clara. That's all I ask."

He let go of her hands, only to draw her close into his arms. She closed her eyes to breathe him in, to feel the solid heat of his body against hers, and she made herself a promise.

_I promise I won't need to lie this time,_ she told herself. _Because I'll do everything in my power to make sure that in my travels with the Doctor, I never do anything to be ashamed of. I mustn't make him my conscience. I've got one of my own._

_Don't I? _


End file.
